This disclosure is directed to systems and methods for using an interactive media guidance application, and more particularly to using the interactive media guidance application to automatically include series assets in a playlist. This disclosure is also directed to systems and methods for using an interactive media guidance application to arrange the order of assets within a playlist.
As defined herein, an asset refers to any type of media that may be played. Such media may include all the variants of television media, music media, interactive games, and other audio and/or video media. Each asset may be associated with one or more identifiers that identify one or more aspects (e.g., name, title, an actor, a director, a producer, theme, and genre) of the asset. For example, a television programming asset for the movie “GoldenEye” may have identifiers such as “Pierce Brosnan” and “action” associated with it.
Playlists may be used to determine the order in which assets (e.g., television programs and songs) are played. With the advent of digital video recorders, which may store many assets, playlists may be used to manage the playback of recorded assets. However, in order for a user to playback assets stored on a digital video recorder or other device (e.g., server), the user may be required to create a playlist. Creation of a playlist may require affirmative actions by the user such as manually selecting assets for inclusion into a playlist. Users may find this exercise to be tedious, especially for series assets such as series recorded assets or series video-on-demand (VOD) assets. Accordingly, what is needed are systems and methods for automatically generating playlists for series assets.
Given that the number of programming choices available are vast, playlists may include a large number of assets, many of which a user may not want to play. Thus, the user may wish to play a subset of the assets (i.e., a set of assets fewer in number than the available assets), but does not want to select each and every desired asset or step through several steps to filter the playlist. Though filtering techniques are known, such techniques fail to provide flexibility in allowing a user to obtain a playlist including the most desired assets the user wishes to play. In addition, even if the playlists are filtered or rearranged, there may be no identifier indicating the basis for the filter or rearrangement of the playlist. What is needed are systems and methods for enabling a user to quickly and easily generate a playlist such that the most desired assets or only the desired assets are played back. What is also needed are systems and methods for identifying the basis for filtering or rearranging of playlists.